The Institute for Human Resources in Pontiac recently promoted Dr. William Puga to medical director for the facility.

Puga, a 22-year veteran in psychology, has been a part of IHR since 2004, consulting with children and families through the Livingston County Mental Health Board. He then started meeting with clients at IHR during the summer of 2007.

“The way this started out is that there was a need for child psychiatry here in the county and I’m a child psychiatrist. I’m an adult psychiatrist and then I did an additional two years for child psychiatry. I’m on staff at Streamwood Hospital and I had a few patients I’d seen from here (in Livingston County). OSF had gotten a grant for children’s needs and as they looked at what their need was and it seemed like child psychiatry was the area of biggest need. At that point, they worked with the hospital and asked for me to come down to be a part of what they do here. The 708 Board actually brought me down. I started working with the 708 Board and I was here for about a year before I transferred to IHR,” he explained, adding that a majority of the funding for him to be present at IHR comes directly from the 708 Board.

Before Puga joined IHR, Joe Vaughan, executive director at IHR, said that if needed, patients would be referred to a doctor in McLean County.

“That was far and few between,” he said. “Otherwise, the adult psychiatrists would just do the best they could or the medical physicians. We didn’t have a specialist, so to speak.”

Puga said that child psychiatry itself is an area of huge need.

“In this area, actually, a lot of the more routine care is done by primary care physicians, so actually what I do these days is I work with the OSF physicians in a program called Resource Link. They take care of typical issues and if they have difficult situations, they sign up to either speak to myself or another doctor in Peoria. On a weekly basis, we’re available for that to have telephone contact, so we’ll consult over the telephone. If it’s necessary for a child to be seen, then we’ll make provisions for them to be seen too,” he explained.

Puga is available at IHR every other Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on the Fridays he’s not there, he can see patients through a program called Tele-Med, which is when Puga can interact with the clients on a screen that is located in a meeting room inside IHR. This system caught on in popularity in Canada and spread to the U.S.

Page 2 of 2 - “It’s very much like Skype,” he explained. “Initial patients I always see in person. You have to make a connection with a child and get a feel for what’s going on and I don’t think you can do that by television. Some kids are excited about it and love it. It’s becoming a more common way of receiving services in under-served areas.”

Puga majored in psychology at Loyola University, graduated from the University of Illinois medical school and completed adult psychiatry residency training at Lutheran General Hospital. He has held several medical directorship positions in adolescent and adult partial hospital programs. Puga has started and managed a successful multi-disciplinary outpatient practice of more than 25 clinicians serving children, adolescents and adults. He does a fair amount of public speaking and teaching on a wide variety of psychiatric topics.

The doctor currently serves as a consultant to the Crystal Lake High School District.